Cookie Cutters
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: On a snowy day in December, the girls want to decorate Christmas cookies, and Gru helps them (just to make sure they don't burn down the kitchen, of course) bake and frost them, enjoying himself and his company with the girls in the process. Merry Christmas!


******_Soli Deo gloria _**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Despicable Me. I can't help myself; my sisters have watched this movie over and over and now I really don't like Vector but we were decorating cookies and BAM. This came out of it. :)  
**

Margo turned in her seat on the big sofa, looking excited as she waved her hand to her sisters. "Edith, Agnes, quick, come over here!"

Edith and Agnes, who were sitting around on the living room floor with a blanket, unicorn and tea set, looked up from where they were clinking their cups, and Edith asked, "What?"

"Look! It's snowing!" Margo said, and Edith and Agnes instantly stood up. Edith rushed to the window while Agnes bent and grabbed her unicorn, Mr. Fluffy. "Real snow?" she asked as she turned to the window, her body nearly hidden by the large toy. "That we can make snow angels in?"

"Yeah, and snowball fights!" Edith said, pumping her fist from her seat by the window.

"Yes, real snow, Agnes," Margo said, reaching down and grabbing her little sister's hand. She helped her up on the sofa, and the four-year-old, holding Mr. Fluffy beside her, peeked over the tall sofa to see the falling snow through the window.

"Wow. It's so pretty!" Agnes said, her eyes widening.

"Yeah, I'm going outside!" Edith said, turning to leave.

Agnes and Margo also turned, Agnes saying as she squeezed her unicorn, "But I thought we were going to make Christmas cookies."

Edith sighed and turned on her heel to face her sisters. Margo, arms folded, nodded and said, "That was the plan."

"Are we going to go ask Dad if we can do it then?" Agnes asked, looking to Margo.

"Yeah, let's go ask him," Margo said, slipping off of the sofa and helping Agnes done. Edith sighed but followed them as they headed over to the large, scarlet red chair, which they sat in and pushed the button. The tube appeared and they went down into the secret lair.

The secret lair, as per usual, was very busy. Minions were running about everywhere, holding clipboards, pressing buttons, giggling in groups, testing vials and the like. Dr. Nefario was busy, goggles over his eyes, working on a new type of ray gun.

The girls passed by some minions who were hanging up Christmas wreaths. Someone was playing a Christmas song and singing along to it. It was the middle of December, and it was looking Christmas-y. Very nice.

"Where is he?" Agnes asked worriedly, looking around through the lair of minions.

Margo looked around, Edith next to her with folded arms. She spotted him and said, "There he is," and the three walked over to him.

Gru was busy at an experimenting table, looking over a new set of blueprints. He had a piece of chalk in his hand and a sketch of something on the desk before him. He looked concentrated for a moment, then quickly bent forward and added one more line. He said, "Aha!" and throwing the chalk, picked up his blueprint with both hands and looked at it, satisfied.

"Yes, this shall do," he said, nodding.

"Hey, Dad?" Margo asked, and he looked from his blueprints to see the three girls all in a line next to the desk.

"Oh, 'ullo," he said, putting down the blueprint. "What is it now?"

"We want to make Christmas cookies," Margo said bluntly.

"And decorate them with frosting and glitter sprinkles!" Agnes added, bouncing up and down, her unicorn shaking.

"What? Christmas cookies? I 'aven't got time for that," Gru said. He added in a more patient voice, "Look, girls, I 'ave a new plan that I've just finished-"

"So you're done and you can help us make cookies, then?" Margo asked, looking undeterred.

Gru looked at her for a moment before quickly shaking his head. "What? No, just because I 'ave finished drawing the plans doesn't mean I'm done _with _the plans."

"So you're not going to help us?" Agnes said in a sad little voice.

Gru stooped so that he was at her eye level. "No, I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't."

"All right, we'll just make them ourselves," Margo said, shrugging as she grasped her little sisters' hands. They turned and headed back to the tube, leaving Gru saying, "Make them yourselves? You'll burn the kitchen down!"

"No, we won't," Margo said, not even turning around.

"It'll be totally cool if we did, though," Edith said as they walked into the tube.

Gru frowned and after a moment, sighed and went quickly after them.

He hurried after them and raced to the kitchen. He, unfortunately, ran past the door, but he was able to see the girls getting ready. Margo was reading a recipe while Edith was reaching for ingredients from the fridge, dropping a pound of butter. Agnes was on the floor, tying an apron around herself.

Gru couldn't stop his feet and ran all the way down the hall, slamming into the front door. He let out a groan and backed up, rubbing his pointy nose as he turned and headed into the kitchen.

He stood in the doorway, barely seeing anything, when he straightened. Margo was busy helping Agnes tie her apron around her, and Edith was left unattended. She was standing in the fridge doorway, stacking eggs from the carton into her arms. She had six eggs in her arms, and was trying to balance one more. She bit her lip as she let go of the egg, and it tittered and fell.

"Ach! What are you doing?" Gru said, rushing to the fridge as Edith reached for another egg to add to her pile.

She threw him a look and said, "Getting eggs for the cookies. Duh."

"No, no, just bring the carton, it's much easier," Gru said, getting it out of the fridge. He turned and saw that Margo was trying to insert cookie paddles into the handheld mixer. "No, no, THAT one goes in the left hole, the other in the right." He then saw Agnes standing on a bar stool near the counter. Her unicorn was next to her, and she was leaning over and digging into the sugar container with a large spoon.

"Agnes," Gru said, hurrying over. "You CANNOT eat sugar like that!"

Agnes took out a spoonful and spilling some, ate it. "But it tastes so nice!"

"But its sticky and you 'ave enough energy as it is," Gru said, taking away the container and struggling to put a lid on it just as Agnes dipped her spoon back in, double-dipping. She sighed and sucked on her spoon instead.

Gru, biting his lip, managed to get the lid back on the container. He turned and gasped when he saw that Margo was grunting, attempting to bring down the bag of flour from the cupboard.

"No! Stop!" he said, and he rushed over and Margo let go of it. He instantly caught it and put it on the counter, letting out a heavy breath. Around him the girls popped up, putting bowls and measuring cups and a spatula on the counter. They all looked expectantly to him, and he sighed and said, "All right. I'll 'elp you with these cookies."

"YAY!" all three girls yelled, their hands in the air.

"All right, game plan," he said, waving his hands about. He shoved stuff to the side of the counter and said, "Recipe."

Margo slapped the recipe on the counter. "Recipe."

Gru drew it closer to him and examined it. "Quick. Butter."

Margo dashed away and brought butter. "Butter."

"Brown sugar."

"Brown sugar," Edith said, on her tiptoes to put it on the counter.

They continued in this fashion until they had all the ingredients. Margo set to preheating the oven and spraying cookie sheet pans while Edith and Agnes, both sitting on the counter, watched and peered into the mixing bowl. It was making into a dough, Gru carefully adding a cup of flour.

"Can I add one?" Agnes said, smiling sweetly.

"All right," Gru said, and he handed her a leveled cup of flour. She carefully took it with both hands and brought it over to the bowl. She dumped it in, while the cookie paddles were still stirring it, and Edith and the counter were promptly covered in flour.

She shrugged and dusted herself off, saying, "Wow! It's like snow, only not so cold!"

"Really?" Agnes asked, sounding curious.

"That's enough," Gru said, and he turned off the mixer and sprinkled some flour on the counter.

"Can I sprinkle?" Edith asked.

"No," Gru said.

"Oh, come on!"

But Gru knew how much of a mess she could make with just a bit of flour. Margo came over and asked, "Can I sprinkle?"

"Yessss," Gru said, trusting her more to be more mature.

He passed the container of floor to her and Edith folded her arms. "Hey, how come she gets to do it?"

"Because she's older," Agnes said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, right," Gru said, dumping the dough on the counter.

He brought out a rolling pin and Edith quickly waved her hand in the air. "I want to use it!"

"'Ere," Gru said, handing it cautiously to Edith, hoping that there really wasn't too much damage she could use it to do. As long as she only used it on the cookie dough, they would be all right.

She grunted and slammed it into the dough, making a valley with two hills. She grunted and started to push forward, though she could hardly move it. The dough was barely smushed at all. It was just a misshapen ball, and despite her efforts, Edith couldn't make it flatten.

"Maybe if you try harder," Agnes said quietly.

"I AM trying!" Edith said.

"Ach, let me do it," Gru said, and Edith let go of the rolling pin and he rolled out the dough smoothly, making it like a large, flat, uncooked pancake.

"That's better," Agnes said cheerfully.

Margo turned to Gru, and hands on her hips, she said, "And where are the cookie cutters?"

"Cookie . . . cutters?" Gru said, looking down from his rolling. "Ach. Cookie . . . cutters."

"You do have some, don't you?" Margo asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gru laughed and turning to the cupboards, said brightly, "Of COURSE I do." He frowned when he felt Margo look away from him, and he searched frantically, muttering to himself, "I've got to 'ave _some_. Aha!"

He turned back to the girls and extended an arm, his hand holding a metal cookie jar. He took off the lid and showed off a vast array of old, musty cookie cutters. The girls reached in and grabbed them, some covered with bits of rust.

The cookie cutters instantly hit the dough and cookies formed. There was gingerbread men and teddy bears and silver bells and Christmas trees and stars and candy canes. Edith pulled cutter after cutter out of the jar. Agnes pressed them into the dough while Margo carefully peeled the cookies from the counter and set them on a cookie sheet. Gru rushed back and forth between the counter and the oven, wearing his mother's homemade oven mitts.

Within an hour, the entire kitchen was steaming. There was racks of cookies sitting on the counter, a dirty bowl in the sink, and three little girls, still full of energy, coloring icing.

"I want red! Blood red!" Edith said excitedly, pumping her fists. Margo shook her head, adding a few drops of red into one of the five bowls of white frosting. "I can't. We'd have to use the whole bottle, and then it would be too liquid-y to use."

"Besides, I like pink. It's pretty," Agnes said.

Gru, letting out a breath, finished placing the last cookies on a cooling rack. He added the cookie sheet in his hand to the pile on the stove and taking off his oven mitt, asked, "Margo, are we ready for frosting?"

"Just about," Margo said, stirring the yellow food coloring into a bowl of frosting.

Agnes sighed with contentment as the yellow swirled and grew paler. "That's so pretty."

"Okay," Margo said, finishing up the yellow, and the three girls grabbed the five bowls and managed to get them over to the kitchen table without spilling them. Gru followed them with racks of cookies, all stacked carefully in his hands. He slid them onto the table and the girls scrambled into their seats, looking expectant. Gru produced three baby knives, knowing enough that Edith might just grab and go wild with a sharpened knife.

"All right, now, try to not-" Gru started, but the girls started before he could finish. Edith grabbed a gingerbread man and said, "I'm going to make mine a dead one!"

"That's gruesome," Margo said. She shrugged and held up a Christmas tree and said, "I'm going to make a Christmas tree."

Agnes reached over and grabbed a candy cane cookie and said, "I'm going to cover mine in pretty sprinkles."

"Okay, but you 'ave to be careful-" Gru said, but Edith was already slamming red icing on her gingerbread man with a vigor. Margo was spilling frosting as she tried to put some into a piping bag, and Agnes finished sloppily frosting her cookie, getting frosting all over the table, and was shaking blue sprinkles all over it, sprinkling the entire table and bench and her sisters.

"Oh, but don't do that," Gru sighed. Margo looked up and nodding to the pile of cookies, said, "Why don't you frost one?"

"Me? Frost a cookie?" Gru said incredulously. "Why would I do that?"

"Because it's fun," Agnes said calmly, starting on another cookie.

"No, I'm not going - Edith, no, that's not how you do it," Gru said. He took her cookie, making her frown, and he placed it on the table and carefully frosted it. "_Smooth _surface, and not too much frosting. There." He handed it back to her, saying, "Not too many sprinkles, now."

Edith nodded and with a quick dash of sprinkles, she looked up and smiled when Gru gave her an approving look. "Yes, that's 'ow you do."

"Here, fix this one," Margo said, handing Gru a star with a splotch of red mixed with green.

"Hmmm," Gru said, stroking his chin. "There should be no mixing of the colors." He carefully separated the colors and finished frosting the cookie.

"Can I put the sprinkles on it?" Agnes asked eagerly. Gru nodded and handed her the cookie, and she carefully decorated it. Edith handed Gru another ugly cookie and he frosted and Agnes sprinkled and Edith and Margo started up their own collection of decorated cookies.

They had a lovely time finishing up the cookies, the snow falling in the window behind them, throwing sprinkles at each other. Gru didn't even reprimand them at doing that, and even joined Agnes against Edith and Margo. They ended up covering the kitchen, and neither of them, least of all Gru, minded. When they finally finished, they had racks of decorated cookies and an entire decorated kitchen.

"That was fun," Agnes said cheerfully, scraping one of the frosting bowls clean.

"Yeah, it was," Margo said.

Edith nodded and jumping up, said, "So when are we going to eat all of these?"

"Whoa, we are NOT eating all of these at once!" Gru said quickly.

"Maybe we can take them to Vector," Agnes said, looking like she had just gotten a brilliant idea. "He likes cookies."

"We're NOT going to the moon," Gru said stoutly.

"What are we going to do with them, then?" Margo asked. "Sell them door to door?"

"Hey, I have an idea," Edith said quickly. She looked to her sisters and then to Gru and said, "You do realize that you have, like, a TON of minions in your basement?"

"I bet they'd like cookies," Margo said, sitting up straighter.

"Yeah, because they TOTALLY need more sugar," Gru said, stretching as he stood up.

"Please?" Agnes said, and then Edith and Margo joined her, and at the sight of their faces, Gru sighed and said, "Fine, all right, but they're going to go crazy!"

"It's kind of hard not to. It's almost Christmas," Margo pointed out.

Gru picked up a plate of the cookies, one bearing four cookies, and sitting back down, held out the plate to the girls, saying, "Might as well 'ave one before they eat them all."

Each girl took up a star cookie and smiled. Gru took the last one, a Christmas tree, and holding it up, said, "Merry Christmas, girls."

The girls' cookies touched his in a toast, all of them saying, "Clink. Merry Christmas to you too, Dad."

**Awwww. Thank you for reading! MERRY CHRISTMAS MY LOVIES, AND God bless you! :)**


End file.
